Even Fox News Employees Think the Network’s Trump Coverage Has Gone Off the Rails

Every employee at every company in the world has their own private breaking point. For some people, it is something like an incompetent manager. Or below-market pay. Or, in the case of now former Fox News reporter Adam Housley, it is his network's myopic focus on defending Donald Trump's bigotry and/or criminality at the expense of literally every other task that a reputable news-gathering organization is supposed to do with its time and resources. Everyone is different!

Sources told Politico that Los Angeles–based Housley, who had been at the network for nearly two decades, grew disillusioned with the "diminished opportunity at the network for reporters and disapproved of tenor of its on-air discussion," and had particularly taken issue with the proliferation of talking-head-driven infotainment at the expense of hard journalism. The human mind, it seems, can tolerate only so many Sean Hannity conspiracy theories and Laura Ingraham hymns to white nationalism before deciding that the paycheck is no longer worth the attendant humiliation.

Watch:

The Crucial Question Trump Refuses to Answer

Housley's move is part of a broader trend in which those who want to do news feel squeezed out by those who want to become MAGA Twitter celebrities. (To show that Fox News has not abandoned journalism entirely of late, Politico credits it for "aggressively" chasing the Mollie Tibbetts murder story, which is a charitable way to characterize the disgusting exploitation of a tragedy to fuel anti-immigrant hysteria.) Shep Smith and Christopher Wallace often appear unable to mask their contempt for the people they cover, or even for their own colleagues. Former Jerusalem bureau reporter Conor Powell bailed earlier this month, too, and Politico quotes anonymous exasperated current and former Fox News employees who worry that they'll be unemployable in the post-Trump era of media, whenever it finally dawns upon us.

“Many Fox News employees I talked to would jump at an opportunity to leave if there was one, just out of frustration,” the former employee said. “There is a frustration with being tied to the Trump administration. At the end of the day, journalists want to report facts.”

The existence of Fox News has always been the Trump administration's single most valuable asset—a mainstream news outlet available on basic cable, created by Republicans for the purpose of promoting a right-wing agenda and praising the politicians who promote it. For as long as conservative voters tune in, the White House can do nothing to lose their support, because it knows that its quasi-independent PR firm will spin its stupidest and most despicable stunts into something palatable at worst, and patriotic at best.

I understand why free-thinking adults who are still capable of feeling shame do not want to work in this environment, and good for them for getting out. But at this point, the institution of Fox News is bigger than any of its individual sycophants—when Bill O'Reilly went down last year in a hail of sexual-harassment settlements, Tucker Carlson was sitting in his seat workshopping men's-rights monologues less than a week later. Even if more people were to follow in Housley's and Powell's footsteps, this exodus would just create a vacuum in which there is no one left to moderate the vapid stream of pro-Trump propaganda beamed into millions of living rooms every night. Fox News is a scourge, and no fix exists for something that was so hopelessly broken to begin with.

Update: A Fox News spokesperson sent us the following statement from Housley, which the network also provided to Politico:

Housley declined an interview but, in a statement shared by a Fox News spokesperson, said: “After nearly two decades at Fox News, I have decided to leave the network and take some time in northern California to raise our two young children closer to my family, which includes running the family winery and even coaching their sports teams. I could not be more proud of the journalism I did at the network, from war zones, to tsunamis, to watching miners pulled from the ground in Chile, I am grateful for the extraordinary opportunities to have a front seat to history and cover news all over the world. A huge thank you to the many Fox employees, especially behind the scenes, who have supported me every step of the way. We are friends for life.”

Since 1957, GQ has inspired men to look sharper and live smarter with its unparalleled coverage of style, culture, and beyond. From award-winning writing and photography to binge-ready videos to electric live events, GQ meets millions of modern men where they live, creating the moments that create conversations.